Dust, and more particularly Lunar dust, has been identified as a significant and present challenge in future exploration missions. In addition to posing contamination and health risks for human explorers, the interlocking, angular nature of Lunar dust and its broad grain size distribution make it particularly detrimental to mechanisms with which it may come into contact.
All Apollo Lunar missions experienced some degree of equipment failure due to dust, and it appears that dust accumulation on exposed material is unavoidable and difficult to reverse. Future exploration missions will ultimately be far longer and include far more extensive surface activities than in Apollo, thus problems with dust accumulation will likely be more prominent.
The connection mechanisms used in Lunar missions are typically scaled versions of terrestrial connections and are not designed with Lunar dust in mind. Although current connector designs may work at a high level, attributes of the connector designs, such as alignment features, clearances, screw threads, locking mechanisms, and the like, need to be analyzed within the context of Lunar dust to prolong the life of such connections in the harsh Lunar environment.
A new generation of interconnections are needed to accommodate the order of magnitude increase in Lunar surface activity expected by exploration surface systems and equipment in future Lunar missions.